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New Cargo Ship Is 488 Meters Long

Posted by Soulskill on from the go-big-or-go-home dept.

An anonymous reader writes: The BBC reports on the construction of Prelude, a new ship that will be the world's longest vessel. It is 488 meters long and 74 meters wide, built with 260,000 tons of steel and displacing five times as much water as an aircraft carrier. Its purpose is to carry an entire natural gas processing plant as it sits over a series of wells 100 miles off the coast of Australia. Until now, it hasn't been practical to move gas that comes out of the wells with ships. The gas occupies too much volume, so it is generally piped to a facility on shore where it is processed and then shipped off to energy-hungry markets. But the Prelude can purify and chill the gas, turning it into a liquid and reducing its volume by a factor of 600. It will offload this liquid to smaller (but still enormous) carrier ships for transport.

11 of 116 comments (clear)

  1. Displacing five times as much water... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It'd be hard for it not to given that it weighs five times as much.

    1. Re:Displacing five times as much water... by ColdWetDog · · Score: 5, Funny

      Oh stop with the physics already. What do you think this is, a technology site?

      --
      Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
    2. Re:Displacing five times as much water... by bobbied · · Score: 4, Funny

      It'd be hard for it not to given that it weighs five times as much.

      Archimedes? Is that you?

      --
      "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
  2. Prelude to what? by hooiberg · · Score: 5, Funny

    If this is the mere Prelude, something truly gargantuan must appear shortly.

  3. Not a cargo ship by eastern · · Score: 5, Informative

    The headline is wrong. This is not at all a cargo ship. It's more like an free-floating platform on which a gas refinery has been built. It will stay in place during its entire lifetime.

    It should not even be compared to ships.

    1. Re:Not a cargo ship by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      It should not even be compared to ships.

      If it can move under it's own power it's a ship.

    2. Re:Not a cargo ship by ArcadeMan · · Score: 4, Informative

      Well, is it going to go there on its own power or will it have to be towed? If it can go there by itself, then it's a ship.

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    3. Re:Not a cargo ship by iggymanz · · Score: 4, Funny

      "I am captain of the world largest ship, change course at once and give us right of way"
      "I am a lighthouse bulb changer, your call"

    4. Re:Not a cargo ship by geekoid · · Score: 4, Informative

      You're numbers aren't even close:

      3.6 million tonnes a year, projected.
      http://www.bbc.com/news/scienc...

      1 million metric tons LNG = 52 trillion Btus
      http://www.extension.iastate.e...

      3.6 * 52 trillion
      that's about 175 trillion BTUs.

      Current price ~10 dollars per million BTU.
      http://www.eia.gov/dnav/ng/his...

      1.75 Billion a year, BEFORE cost of operation.

      Once again, when not using made up numbers, Green energies are the same.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
  4. That's pretty cool by Cpt_Kirks · · Score: 4, Funny

    162 C below zero

  5. Re:An enormous natural disaster waiting to happen by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Gob forbid all that natural gas leak into the water? Who will clean up a natural gas slick?